As a teenager with a bad case of the sweet-tooth, I began to bake on Sundays. As a college student, I moved out of home and into a grungy apartment with a kitchen that was falling apart and began to eat out a lot! I moved to Japan and lived off cornflakes and beer and didn't even own an oven. (Ovens as westerners know them don't exist over here.)
Then I got married to some Canadian. Japanese society still expects a wife to do all the cooking and cleaning so, more out of a misplaced sense of responsibilty than anything else, I began to cook again. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it and quickly expanded my base of favorites. My husband stopped asking long ago if I would like a night off!

My favorite things to cook

Muffins/banana breads/cheesecakes/cookies for my husbands breakfast and my afterwork treat. (For some strange reason North Americans think that sweet things can be classified as breakfast food.)
New recipes! I love trying new things, although that can get frustrating when I can't remember what that really delicious thing I made last month was....
Asian, Mexican, Middle Eastern and Indian as I adore cilantro/coriander which is so often featured in those dishes.

My favorite family cooking traditions

Anytime my busy husband is home all morning on a weekend and I can make a big deal out of cooking a huge American or English breakfast for us. Doesn't happen more than a couple of times a year so I can go overboard!

My cooking triumphs

Most of my husbands workmates are married to Japanese people. Everytime my husband takes in his leftovers from a meal they haven't eaten since coming to Japan and gloats over it, I feel a warm glow. Shameful but true.

My cooking tragedies

For our anniversary I wanted to make saffron champagne scallops. As the saffron was roasting as per instructions, a really cool lightening storm started and I went outside to watch. Scallops had a burnt taste and our special dinner that I had planned for a month was ruined!
I also still make amateur mistakes too often. Last week I trusted my bench-top oven to cook my carrot cake and didn't test it for doneness before it was too late.

We think this is fab. I've used both frozen mango and canned mango (you have to be careful with canned cause it "smushes" easily) when fresh has been unavailable. If you don't like the taste of cumin (I looove it) try fresh grated ginger and/or black pepper and/or a dash of chili. I like a lot of dressing and a lot of veges in relation to pasta so I add plain yoghurt to the dressing and throw in some mizuna and extra cilantro, too.

Taste- 4 stars, ease of preparation- 5 stars. I could easily guess the outcome of this recipe is based on the quality of your ingredients. To the salsa, I added extra tomato, chopped roasted peppers, olives etc. My end result was a little watery because my fish was just defrosted. Next time I will make sure my fish is dry and leave it marinating in the salsa for an hour before baking so my not-best-quality-frozen-fish can take on some more flavour. Excellent easy summer recipe served with tortillas, salad and so on. Leftovers were good with rice, too.
Post note: Made it again. Put just undercooked i stock brown rice on the bottom and added kidney beans, corn and chopped tomatoes to the salsa. Cooked up beautifully and was basically a complete meal in itself although I still had avocado and tortillas on the side.

We liked this very much after I made a few minor changes based on availabiilty and personal preferences. I did half milk, half stock and then used a stick blender to partly puree - all the creaminess with not as much fat. Also subbed some of the cheddar for parmesan for the same reason. Used about a 1/2 Tbsp of pesto because didn't have fresh basil. Only made enough for 2 of us though.